1,Isaiah Berlin:

THE NorIoN oF 'NEGATIVE' FREEDOM

I am normally said to be free to the degree to which no man or bodyof men interferes with my activity. polltical liberty in this sense is

o@ Oxford_ University Press 1959. Reprinted from Four Essays onLiberty, by Sir Isaiah Berlin (1959), by pirmission of Oxford UniversityPress.

Two Concepts of Liberty',

I

To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom - freedom fromwhat? Almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom.Like happiness and goodness, l ike nature and reality, the meaningof this term is so porous that there is little interpietation that iiseems able to resisr. I do not propose to discuss eitlier the history orthe more than two hundred senses of this protean word recordej byhistorians of ideas. I propose to examine no more than two of thlsenses - but those central ones, with a great deal of human historybehind thern, and, I dare say, still to come. The first of thes!political senses of freedom or liberty (I shall use both words tomean the same), which (following much precedent) I shall call the'negative' sense, is involved in the answei to the question ,What isthe area within which the subject - a person or group of persons -is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do o, be, withoutinterference by other persons?' The second, which I shali call thepositive sense, is involved in the answer to the question .'What, orwho, is the source of control or interference that can determinesome.one to do, or be, this rather than that?, The two questions areclearly different, even though the answers ro them may bverlap.

16 Two ConcePts of Liberty

simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by othtrs.

If I ;; prevented by others from doing what I could otherwise do, I

am to that degree unfree; and if this area is contracted by other-menbeyond a cettain minimum, I can be described as being coerced, or,it may be, enslaved. Coercion is not, however, a term that covers

every-form of inabil ity. If I say that I am unable to-jump more than

ten ieet in the air. or cannot read because I am blind, or cannot

understand the darker pages of Hegel, it would be eccentric to say

that I am to that degree enslaved or coerced. Coercion implies the

deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in

which I could otherwise act. You lack political liberty or freedom

only if you are prevented from attaining a goal by hum-aq beings.'

Mere incapacity to attain a goal is not lack of political freedom.'This is brought out by the use of such modern expressions as

'economic freedom' and its counterpart' 'economic slavery'' It is

argued, very plausibly, that if a man is too poor to afford somethingon which theie is no legal ban - a loaf of bread, a journey round the

world, recourse to the law courts - he is as little free to have it as he

would be if it were forbidden him by law. If my poverty were a kind

of disease, which prevented me from buying bread, or paying for

the journey round the world or getting my case heard, as lameness

prevents me from running, this inability would not naturally be

described as a lack of freedom, least of all polit ical freedom. It is

only because I believe that my inabil ity to get a given thing is.due.tothe'fact that other human beings have made arrangements wherebyI am, whereas others are not, prevented from having enough money

with which to pay for it, that I think myself a victim of coercion or

slavery. In other words, this use of the term depends on a Particularsocial and economic theory about the causes of my poverty or

weakness. If my lack of material means is due to my lack of mentaL

or physical capacity, then I begin to speak of being deprived of

freedom (and not simply about poverty) only if I accept the theory-. 'If. in addition, I believe that I am being kept in want by a specificarrangement which I consider uniust or unfair '.1 speak of eco.nomicslarrer! or oppression. 'The nature of things does not madden us,

only i i l wil l does', said Rousseau. The criterion of oppression is the

pari that I believe to be played by other human beings, direcdy. or

indirectly, with or without the intention of doing so, in frustrating

my wishes. By being free in this sense I mean not being interfered

with by others. The wider the area of non-interference the wider my

freedom.This is what the classical English polit ical philosophers meant

when they used this word.a They disagreed about how n'ide the

Isaiah Berlin 1,7area could or should be. They gupposed that it could not, as rhingswere, be unlimited, because if i t were, it would entail a ,t"t. inwhich all men could boundlessly interfere with all other men: andthis kind of 'natural' freedom would lead to social chaos in whichmen's minimum needs would not be satisfied; or else the l ibertiesof the weak would be suppressed by the strong. Because theyperceived that human purposes and activit ies do n6t automaticallyharmonize wirh one another, and because (whatever their officiardoctrines) they put high value on other goals, such as justice, orhappiness, or culture, or securiry, or uarying degrees of .qu"iity,they were prepared to curtail freedom in th. i-nterests of oth..values and, indeed, of freedom itself. For, without this, it wasimpossible to creare the kind of association rhat they thoughtdesirable. Consequently, it is assumed by these thinkers that ihearea of men's free action musr be l imited by law. But equally it isassumed, especially by such libertarians as Locke

"ni Mil l in

England, and Constant and Tocquevil le in France, that there oughtto exist a certain minimum area of personal freedom which must onno account be violated; for if i t is overstepped, the individual wil lf ind himself in an area too narrow foi even that minimumdevelopment of his natural faculties which alone makes it oossibleto pursue, and even to conceive, the various ends which men holdgood or right or sacred. It follows that a frontier must be drawnbetween the area of private l ife and that of public authority. whereit is to be drawn is a marrer of_argument, indeed of haggling. Menare largely interdependent, and no man's activity is sJlom"pletelyprivate as never to obstruct the l ives of others in any way. .Freedom

for the. pike_is death for the minnows'; the l iberty of some musrdepend on the restraint of others. 'Freedom for an Oxford don'.others have been known to add, ' is a very different rhing fromfreedom for an Egyptian peasant.'

This proposition derives its force from something that is bothtrue and important, but the phrase itself remains a piJce of politicalclaptrap. It is-true_that to offer polit ical rights, or safeguards againstintervention by the stare, to men who are half-naked. i l l i t-erate.underfed, and diseased is to mock their condition: thev needmedical help or education before they can undersrand, or

-"k. ,t.

of, an increase in their freedom. rVhat is freedom to those whocannot make use of it? Without adequate conditions for the use offreedom, what is rhe value of freedom? First things come first: thereare situations, as a nineteenth-century Russian radical writerdeclared, in which boots are superior to ihe works of Shakespeare;individual freedom is not everyone's primary need. For freedom ii

18 Two ConcePts of LibertY

not the mere absence of frustration of whatever kind; this wou,ld

influ,. the meaning of the word unti l i t meant too much or too l itt le.

The Egyptian p."iunt needs clothes or medicine before, and more

,ft"r, "p'.lto""i lib..,y, but the minimum. freedom that he needs

;;i;;,' and the grearer degree of -freedom

that he may need

,o*oiro*, is noi ro-. tp.i i .s of freedom peculiar to him, but

identical with that of professors' artists' and mill ionaires'

what troubles the consciences of western l iberals is not, I think,

the belie{ that the freedom that men seek differs according to their

social or economic conditions, but that the minority who possess it

have gained it by exploit ing, or, at lea.st, averting their gaze from'

ih. u"r, maiority who do not. They believe, with good reason, that

i f indiv idual l iberty is an ul t imate end for human beings,-non'

should be deprivei of it by others; least of all that some should

enjoy it at the expense of others. Equality of l iberty; not to treat

otheis as I should not wish them to treat me; repayment of my debt

to those who alone have made possible my liberty or prosperity or

enlightenment; justice, in its simplest and most universal sense -

it. i . "..

rhe foundations of l iberal morality. Liberty is not the only

*."i"f men. I can, l ike the Russian crit ic Belinsky, say that i{ others

ire to be deprived of it - i{ my brothers are to remain ln poverty'

scualor. and chains - then I do not want it for myself, I reiect it

,Ji if, uoirr hands and infinitely prefer to share their fate. But nothing

is gained by a confusion of 'terms.

To avoid glaring inequality or

wiiespread- misery I am ready to sacrif ice some' or all, of my

freedom: I may do so willingly and freely: but it is freedom that I am

;i; l;; ;o fo. ih. sake of iuit ice or equality or the love of my fellow

iren.*l should be guilt-stricken, and rightly so, if I were not,. in some

circumstanc.r, ..""dy to make this sacrif ice. But a sacrif ice is not an

increase in what is being sacrif iced, namely freedom, however great

the moral need or the compensation for it. Everything is what it is:

l iberty is l iberty, not equality or fairness -or iu-stice or culture, or

hurnan happiness or a quiet conscience. lf the l iberty of my-self or

my class oi n"tion depinds on the misery of a number of other

ttJ.n"n beings, the system which promotes this is uniust and

immoral. Sui it t curt; i l or lose my freedom, in order to lessen the

shame of such inequality, and do not thereby materially increase

the individual l iberiy of 'others,

an absolute loss of l iberty occurs.

This may be compensated for by a gain in iustice or in happiness or

in peace. but rhe ioss remains, and it is a confusion of values to say

thJt although my ' l iberal', individual freedom may g9 by the board,

i"-. "tt.."kini

of freedom - 'social ' or 'economic' - is increased.yct it remalns true that the freedom of some must at t imes be

Isaiah Berlin

curtailed to secure the freedom of others. Upon what principleshould this be done? If freedom is a sacred, untouchable value,there can be no such principle. One or other of these conflictingrules or principles must, at any rate in practice, yield: not alwaysfor reasons which can be clearly stated, let alone generalized intorules or universal maxims. Sti l l , a practical compromise has to befound.

Philosophers with an optimistic view of human nature and abelief in the possibil i ty of harmonizing human interests, such asLocke or Adam Smith and, in some moods, Mill, believed thatsocial harmony and progress were compatible with reserving alarge area for private l ife over which neither the state nor any otherauthority must be allowed to trespass. Hobbes, and those whoagreed with him, especially conservative or reactionary thinkers,argued that if men were to be prevented from destroying oneanother and making social l i fe a jungle or a wilderness, greatersafeguards must be instituted to keep them in their places; hewished correspondingly to increase the area of centralized controland decrease that of the individual. But both sides agreed that someportion of human existence must remain independent of the sphereof social control. To invade that preserve, however small, would bedespotism. The most eloquent of all defenders of freedom andprivacy, Benjamin Constant, who had not forgotten the Jacobindicta.torship, declarbd that at the very least the liberty of religion,opinion, expression, property, must be guaranteed against arbitraryinvasion. Jefferson, Burke, Paine, Mill, compiled different cata-logues of individual l iberties, but the argument for keepingauthority at bay is always substantially the same. We musr preservea minimum area of personal freedom if we are not to 'degrade ordeny our nature'. We cannot remain absolutely free, and must giveup some of our l iberty to preserve the rest. But total self-surrenderis self-defeating. What then must be the minimum be? That which aman cannot give up without offending against the essence of hishuman nature. What is this essence? rJ7hat are the standards whichit entails? This has been, and perhaps always wil l be, a matter ofinfinite debate. But whatever the principle in terms of which thearea of non-interference is to be drawn, whether it is that of naturallaw or natural rights, or of utility or the pronouncements of acategorical imperative, or the sanctity of the social contract, or anyother concept with which men have sought to clarify and justifytheir convictions, liberty in this sense means liberty from; absenceof interference beyond the shifting, but always recognizable,frontier. 'The only freedom which deserves the name is that of

L9

z0 Two ConcePts of LibertY

pursuing our own good in our own way" said the most celebrated

;i;;.h;i l ions. If"this is so, is compuliion ever iustif ied? Mill had

no doubt that it was. since justice demands that all indtvtduals be

entirled to a minrmum of freedom, all other individuals were of

"...tt i ty to be restrained, if need be by.force, from depriving

"."L". tt it. Indeed, the whole function of law was the preventio.n

;'i't;; t"lh .ollitions: the state was reduced to what Lassalle

.o.i*pr"ously described as the functions of a nightwatchman or

traffic policeman.whatmadetheprotect ionof indiv idual l ibertysosa.credto. .Mi l l?

fn nit l"-"ur.rr"y he declares that, unless men are left to l ive as

;irt;i;t in the path which merely concerns themselves', civiliza-

,ioi' ."nrro, aduanc.; the truth wili not, for lack of a free market

in ia."t, come to light; there will be no scoPe for spontaneity'

oiininutitv. genius, f6r mental energy' for moral courage-'-Society

;i lT t; . i"rf i.d by the weight of 'collective mediocrity'. Whatever

i, ,iJ and diveriified wilf be crushed by the weight- of c.ustom'

by men's constant tendency to conformity, which breeds, onlY

riri,tt.t.a capacities', 'pincired and - hidebound', 'cramped and

*urp.d' hu-an beings. 'Pagan self-assertion is as worth.y as

Ch;ir; i", self-denial'." 'All thi errors which a man is l ikely to

;;;i;;g;inst advice and warning ate.far outweighed by the evil

of allowirig others to constrain him to what they deem is So9$" t n;

;.i.";. of" lib..ty consisrs in the 'negative' goal of warding off

interference. To threaten a man with persecution unless he-submlts

l"'" fif. L which he exercises no choices of his goals; to block

6.f"t. him every door but one' no matter.how noble the prosp.ect

"ptt *ni.n it opens, or how benevolent the motives of those who

^ir^ngrthis, is to sin against the truth that he is a man, a being with

;[f;t nii "*n

to liv"e. This is liberty as it has been conceived by

liberals in the modern world from the days of Erasmus (some

*r"ra say of occam) to our own. Every plea for civil liberties and

individuai rights, every protest aBainst.exploitation and humilia-

tion, "g"intt"the

encroa.h-.nt o-f public authority, or the mass

hvpnori, of custom or organized propaganda,,springs from this

indivldualistic, and much disputed, conception of man'

ih... facts about this poiition may bi noted' In the first place

Mill confuses two distincf notions. One is that all coercion is, in so

i", ",

it frustrates human desires, bad as such, although it may have

to b. "ppfi.d

to Prevent other' greater evils; while non-interference'

*niift L'the opposite of coerciott, is good as such, although it is not

the only g"oa. This is the 'negative' conception of liberty in its

classicai f"orm. The other is that men should seek to discover

Isaiah Berlin

the truth, or to develop a certain type of character of whichMill approved - crit ical, original, imaginative, independent, non-conforming to the point of eccentricity, and so on - and that truthcan be found, and such character can be bred, only in conditions offreedom. Both these are l iberal views, but they are not identical,and the connection between them is, at best, empirical. No onewould argue that truth or freedom of self-expression could flourishwhere dogma crushes all thought. But the evidence of history tendsto show (as, indeed, was argued by James Stephen in his formidableattack on Mill in his Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) that integrity,love of truth, and fiery individualism grow at least as often inseverely disciplined communities among, for example, the puritanCalvinists of Scotland or New England, or under military disci-pline, as in more tolerant or indifferent societies; and if this is so,Mill's argument for liberty as a necessary condition for the growthof human genius falls to the ground. If his two goals provedincompatible, Mil l would be faced with a cruel dilemma, quiteapart from the futher difficulties created by the inconsistency of hisdoctrines with strict utilitarianism, even in his own humane versionof it.5

In the second place, the doctrine is comparatively modern. Thereseems to be scarcely any discussion of individual l iberty as aconscious political ideal (as opposed to its actual existence) in theancient world. Condorcet had already remarked that the notion ofindividual rights was absent from the legal conceptions of theRomans and Greeks; this seems to hold equally of the Jewish,Chinese, and all other ancient civil izations that have since come tolight.6 The domination of this ideal has been the exception ratherthan the rule, even in the recent history of the \fest. Nor has libertyin this sense often formed a rallying cry for the great masses ofmankind. The desire not to be impinged upon, to be left to oneself,has been a mark of high civil ization both on the part of individualsand communities. The sense of privacy itself, of the area of personalrelationships as something sacred in its own right, derives from aconception of freedom which, for all its religious roots, is scarcelyolder. in its developed state, than the Renaissance or the Reforma-tion.7 Yet its decline would mark the death of a civil ization, of anentire moral outlook.

The third characteristic of this notion of liberty is of greaterimportance. It is that l iberty in this sense is not incompatible withsome kinds of autocracy, or at any rate with the absence of self-government. Liberty in this sense is principally concerned with thearea of control, not with its source. Just as a democracy may, in

21

22 Two ConcePts of LibertY

fact, deprive the individual cit izen of a,great many liberties which

t'r. - ight

have in some other form of society,.so it . is perfectly

."nl. i"u"Ut. that a l iberal-minded despot would allow his subiects a

large measure of personal freedom' The despot who leaves his

,uf,|..tt a wide ar-ea of l iberty- may be uniust, or cncourage.the

*iiA.t, inequalit ies, care l itt le'for order, or virtue' or knowledge;

buiprouided he does not curb their l iberty, or at least curbs it less

;;;;;t oihe, .egimes, he meets with Mill's specification'o

Freedom in this ,.nr.-i, not, ar any rate logically, connectedwith

;;;;;;;.y or self-government. $slf-gclvernment may'.9.1 th9 whole'

orovide a better g,ra.antee of the preservation of civil l iberties than

irh., ,.gi-.r, "id

has been defended as such .by l ibertarians' But

there is no na.assury connection between indtvtdual l lberty ancl

J.-t.r^ti. rule. Theanswer to the question 'Who governs me?' is

logically distinct from the guestigJr 'How far does government

i ' ie.f.re with me?' It is in this difference that the great contrast

between the two concepts of negative and positive l iberty' in,the

end, consists., For the 'positive' sense of l iberty comes to l lght,l i ,we

trv to answer the quest ion, not 'What am I f ree to do or bei '

bul:Su *ht"- am I ru led?'or 'Who is to say what I am, and wha.t I am

;,, ;-b. or do?' the connection between democracy and indi-

vidual l iberty is a good deal more tenuous than it seemed to many

"Juo."r., of both]the desire to be governed by mysel{, or at any

rate to participate in the process by which my life ls to. be

.ontroll.h, -"f

b. as deep a-wish as that of a free area for action'

ura p..h"p, historically older. But it is not a desire for the same

if,i"*'. S. i i ff.r.n, is it, indeed, as to have led in the end to the great

;;;f; ; i iJeologies that dominates our world' For it is this - the

'positive'conceition of l iberty: not freedom from, but freedom.to.-

;-i;;; one prescribed form'of l i fe - which the adherents of the

'negative' notion represent as being, at t imes' no better than a

tp.i iout disguise for brutal tyranny.

II

THE NOTION OF POSITIVE FREEDOM

The 'positive' sense of the word 'liberty' derives from the wish on

,h. pl., of the individual to be his own master' I wish my life and

J..ilrion, to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever

23Isaiab Berlin

kind. I wish to be the instrument of my own, not of other men's,acts of wil l. I wish to be a subject, not an object; to be moved byreasons, by conscious purposes, which are my own, not by causeswhich affect me, as it were, from outside. I wish to be somebody,not nobody; a doer - deciding, not being decided for, self-directedand not acted upon by external nature or by other men as if I were athing, or an animal, or a slave incapable of playing a human role,that is, of conceiving goals and policies of my own and realizingthem. This is at least part of what I mean when I say that I amrational, and that it is my reason that distinguishes me as a humanbeing from the rest of the world. I wish, above all, ro be consciousof myself as a thinking, wil l ing, active being, bearing responsibil i tyfor my choices and able to explain them by references ro my ownideas and purposes. I feel free to the degree that I believe this to betrue, and enslaved to the degree that I am made to realize that it isnot.

The freedom which consists in being one's own master, and thefreedom which consists in not being prevented {rom choosing as Ido by other men, may, on the face of it, seem concepts at no greatlogical distance from each other - no more than negative andpositive ways of saying much the same thing. Yet the'positive' and'negative' notions of freedom historically developed in divergentdirections not always by logically reputable steps, unti l, in the end,they came into direct conflict with each other.

One way of making this clear is in terms of the independentmomentum which the, init ially perhaps quite harmless, metaphorof self-mastery acquired. ' l am my own master'; ' l am slave to noman'; but may I not (as Platonists or Hegelians tend to say) be aslave to nature? Or to my own 'unbridled' passions? Are these notso many species of the identical genus 'slave' - some polit ical orlegal, others moral or spiritual? Have not men had the experienceof liberating themselves from spiritual slavery, or slavery ro nature,and do they not in the course of it become aware, on rhe one hand,of a self which dominates, and, on the other, of something in themwhich is brought to heel? This dominant self is then variouslyidentified with reason, with my 'higher nature', with the self whichcalculates and aims at what will satisfy it in the long run, with my'real', or ' ideal', or 'autonomous' self, or with my self 'at its best';which is then contrasted with irrational impulse, uncontrollecdesires, my 'lower' nature, the pursuit of immediate pleasures, my'empirical' or'heteronomous' self, swept by every gust of desire andpassion, needing to be rigidly disciplined if it is ever to rise to thefull height of its 'real' nature. Presently the two selves may be

24 Two Concepts of Liberty

represented as divided by an even larger gap: the.real sel{ may be

conceived as something wider than the individual (as the term is

normally understood), is a social 'whole' of which the individual is

an elemlnt or aspect: a tribe, a race' a church, a state' the great

society of the l ivrng and the dead and the yet unborn. This entity

is then identif ied as being the 'true' self which, by imposing its

collective, or 'organic', single wil l upon its recalcitrant 'members',

achieves i is own, and theref:ore their, 'higher' freedom. The perilsof

using organic metaphors to justify the-coercion of some men by

otheis in" order to iaise them to a 'higher' level of freedom have

often been pointed out. But what gives such plausibil i ty as it has to

this kind of l"ngu"g" is that we recognize that it is possible' and at

times justif iable, to coerce men in the name of some-goal (let us say,justice or public health) which they would, if they were more

enlightened, themselves pursue, but do not' because they are blind

or ilnorant or corrupt. This renders it easy for me to conceive of

*yt.tf as coercing others for their own sake, in their, t9-t my,

inierest. I am thentlaiming that I know what they truly need better

than they know it themselves. What, at most' this entails is- that

they would not resist me if they were rational and as wise as I and

,r.rierstood their interests as I do. But I may go on to claim a good

deal more than this. I may declare that they are actually aiming at

what in their benighted state they consciously resist, because there

exists within them an occult entity - their latent rational wil l, or

their ' true' purpose - and that this entity, although it is belied by all

that they ou.tt iy feel and do and say, is their 'real' self, of which the

poor empirical'self in space and time qay.know nothing or l i tde;

and thai this inner spirit is the only self that deserves to have its

wishes taken into aicount.lo Once I take this view, I am in a

position to ignore the actual wishes of men or societies, to bully,

oppr.rt, tortirre them in the name, and on behalf, of their 'real'

r.lu.t, in the secure knowledge that whatever is the true goal of

man (happiness, performance of duty, wisdom, a iust- society, self-

fulfilmenti *r,ti b. identical with his freedom - the free choice of

his 'true', albeit often submerged and inarticulate, self.This paradox has been often exposed. It is one thing to s.ay that I

know what is good for X' while he himsel{ does not; and even to

ignore his wishis for its - and his - sake; and a very different oneto

iay that he has eo ipso chosen it, not indeed consciously, not as.he

seems in everyday iife, but in his role as a rational self which his

empirical self 'may not know - the 'real' self which discerns the

good, and cannot help choosing it once it is revealed' This

iro.rit.or.rt impersonatibn, which consists in equating what X

lsaiah Berlin

l

25would choose if he were something he is not, or at least nor yer,with what X actually seeks and chooses, is at the heart of'alipolit ical theories of self-realization. It is one thing to say that I maybe coerced for my own good which I am roo blind to see: this may,on occasion, be for my benefit; indeed it may enlarge the scope ofmy liberty. lt is another ro say that if i t is my good, rhen I am notbeing coerced, for I have wil led it, whether I know this or nor, andam_free (or ' t ru ly ' f ree) even whi le my poor earthly body andfoolish mind bitterly reject it, and struggle-against those who seekhowever benevolently to impose it, with the greatest desperation.

This magical transformation, or sleight of hand (for which\Will iam

James so justly mocked the Hegelians), can no doubt beperpetrated just as easily with the 'negative' concepr of freedom,where the self that should not be interfered with is no longer theindividual with his actual wishes and needs as rhey are noimallvconceived, but the 'real' man within, identif ied with the pursuit ofsome ideal purpose not dreamed of by his empirical self. And, as inthe case of the 'positively' free self, this entity may be inflated intosome super-personal entity - a state, a class, a nation, or the marchof history itself, regarded as a more 'real' subject of attributes thanthe empirical self. But the 'positive' conceprion of freedom as self-mastery, with its suggesrion of a man divided against himself, has,in fact, and as a marrer of history, of doctrine and of pracice, lentitself more easily to this splitt ing or personality into rwo: rhetranscendent, dominant controller, and the empirical bundle oldesires and passions to be disciplined and brought to heel. It is thishistorical fact that has been influential. This demonstrates (ifdemonstration of so obvious a trurh is needed) thar conceptions offreedom directly derive from views of what consrirures a self, aperson, a man. Enough manipulation with rhe definit ion of man,and freedom can be made to mean wharever rhe manipulatorwishes. Recent history has made it only too clear that the issue isnot merely academic.

The consequences of distinguishing between two selves wil lbecome even clearer if one considers the two major forms which thedesire to be self-directed - directed by one's 'rrue' self - hashistorically taken: the first, that of self-abnegation in order to attainindependence; the second, that of self-realizarion. or total self-identification with a specific principle or ideal in order to attain thesel fsameend.. . .

I

Itit

I

26 Two ConcePts of LibertY

III

LIBERTY AND SOVEREIGNTY

Isaiah Berlin

of hands. For unlimited authority in anybody's grasp was bound,he believed, sooner or later, to destroy somebody. He maintainedthat usually men protested against this or that set of governors asoppressive, when the real cause of oppression lay in the mere fact ofthe accumulation of power itself, wherever it might happen to be,since l iberty was endangered by the mere existence of absoluteauthority as such. ' l t is not the arm that is unjust', he wrote, 'but theweapon that is too heavy - some weights are too heavy for thehuman hand.' Democracy may disarm a given oligarchy, a givenprivileged individual or set of individuals, but it can sti l l crushindividuals as mercilessly as any previous ruler. In an essaycomparing the l iberty of the moderns with that of the ancients hesaid that an equal right to oppress - or interfere - is not equivalentto l iberty. Nor does universal consent to loss of l iberty somehowmiraculously preserve it merely by being universal, or by beingconsent. If I consent to be oppressed, or acquiesce in my conditionwith detachment or irony, am I the less oppressed? If I sell myselfinto slavery, am I the less a slave? If I commit suicide, am I the lessdead because I have taken my own life freely? 'Popular governmentis a spasmodic tyranny, monarchy a more efficiently centralizeddespotism.' Constant saw in Rousseau the most dangerous enemyof individual l iberty, because he had declared that 'by giving myselfto all I give myself to none'. Constant could not see why, eventhough the sovereign is 'everybody', it should not oppress one o{the 'members' of its indivisible self, i f i t so decided. I may, of course,prefer to be deprived of my liberties by an assembly, or a family, ora class, in which I am a minority. It may give me an opportunity oneday of persuading the others to do for me that to which I {eel I amentit led. But to be deprived of my liberty at the hands of my familyor friends or fellow cit izens is to te depiived of it iust as effectively.Hobbes was at any rate more candid: he did not pretend that asovereign does not enslave: he justif ied this slavery, but at least didnot have the effrontery to call it freedom.

Throughout the nineteenth century liberal thinkers maintainedthat if libirty .nvolved a limit upon the powers of any man to forceme to do what I did not, or might not, wish to do' then, whateverthe ideal in the name of which I was coerced, I was not free; that thedoctrine of absolute sovereignty was a tyrannical doctrine in itself.

If I wish to preserve my liberty, it is not enough to say that is mustnot be violated unless someone or other - the absolute ruler' or thepopular assr.nbly, or the King in Parliament' or the ludges' or someiombination of authorities, or the laws themselves - for the lawsmay be oppressive - authorizes its violation. I must establish a

27

The French Revolution, l ike all great revolutions, was, at least in its

Jacobin form, iust such an eruption o.f the desire -for 'positive'

i...do- of collective self-direction on the part of a large body of

Frenchmen who felt l iberated as a nation, even though the result

was, for a good many o{ them, a severe restriction of individual

f.e.io-s. p"o.rrr."u had spoken exultantly of the fact that the laws

of l iberty might prove to be -ot.

austere than the yoke.of tyranny'

Tyrannf is sirvice to human masters. The law cannot be a tyrant'

Rlrrrr."u does not mean by l iberty the 'negative' freedom. of the

individual nor ro be interfered with within a defined area, but the

possession by all, and not merely by some' of the fully qualif ied

-e-bers of

'a society of a share in the public power which.is

entitled to interfere with every aspect of every citizen's life. The

liberals of the first half of the nineteenth century correctly foresaw

ihat l iberty in this .positive' sense could easily destroy too. many of

the .negative' l iberties rhat they held sacred. They pointed out.that

the soiereignty of the people could- easily destroy that o{ indi'

viduals. MiTl explained,-patiently and unanswerably,' that govern-

ment by the people *u. not, in his sense, necessarily freedom at all '

For those *ho gbu.r.t are not necessarily the same 'people' as tho.se

*ho "..

gou.in.d, and democratic self-government. is not the

gou"rn-.it 'of each by himself '-but' at best, of 'each by the rest' '

t l i l l a"d his disciples ipoke of the tyranny of the maiority and of

the tyranny of 'the prevail ing feeling and opinion', and saw no great

difference'bet*een that and any other kind of tyranny which

encroaches upon men's activities beyond the sacred frontiers of

private l ife.No one saw the conflict between the two types of liberty better,

or expressed it more clearly, than Beniamin Cbnstant' He pointed

out tirat the transfer.n.. by a successful rising of the unlimited

authority, commonly called-sovereignty, from one set of hands to

another'do., not increase liberty, but merely shifts the burden of

slavery, He reasonably asked. why a man should deeply .carewh.the, he is crushed by a popular government or by a monarch'-or

even by a set of oppressive^laws. Hi saw that the main problem for

those who desire'.negative" individual freedom is not who wields

this authority, but how much authority should be placed in any setrlt 'I

!

Two Concepts of LibertY Isaiab Berlin

are ordered to denounce their parents, friends to betray oneanother, soldiers to use methods of barbarism; when men aretortured or murdered, or minorities are massacred because theyirritate a majority or a tyrant. Such acts, even if they are made legalby the sovereign, cause horror even in these days, and this springsfrom the recognition of the moral validity - irrespective of the laws- of some absolute barriers to the imposition of one man's wil l onanother. The freedom of a society, or a class or a group, in thissense of freedom, is measured by the strength of these barriers, andthe number and importance of the paths which they keep open fortheir members - if not for all, for at any rate a great number ofthem.11

This is almost at the opposite pole from the purposes of thosewho believe in l iberty in the 'positive'* self-directive - sense. Theformer want to curb authority as such. The latter want it placedin their own hands. That is a cardinal issue. These are not twodifferent interpretations of a single concept, but two profoundlydivergent and irreconcilable attitudes to the ends of life. It is as wellto recognize this, even if in practice it is often necessary to strike acompromise between them. For each of them makes absoluteclaims. These claims cannot both be fully satisfied. But it is aprofound lack of social and moral understanding not to recognizethat the satisfaction that each of them seeks is an ultimate valuewhich, both historically and morally, has an equal right to beclassed among the deepest interests of mankind.

IV

THE ONE AND THE MANY

One belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter ofindividuals on the altars of the great historical ideals - justiceor progress or the happiness of future generations, or the sacredmission or emancipation of a nation or race or class, or even libertyitself, which demands the sacrif ice of individuals for the freedom ofsociety. This is the belief that somewhere, in the past or in thefuture, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker,in the pronouncements of history or science, or in the simple heartof an uncorrupted good man, there is a final solution. This ancientfaith rests on the conviction that all the positive values in which

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society in which there must be some frontiers of freedom which

nobody should be permitted to cross. Different names or natures

m"v b. given to the rules that determine these frontiers: they may

t. i"Ll.fn"tural rights, or the word of God, or Natural Law, or the

demands of uti l i ty or of the 'permanent interests of man'; I may

believe them to be valid a piiori, or assert them to be my own

,rLi-"r. ends, or the ends of my society or culture' What these rules

oi.o-*""dments will have in common is that they are accepted so

widely, and are grounded so deeply in the actual nature of men as

they (ave develo"ped through history, as to. be, by ngw., an essentiaL

pa.i of what we'mean by-being a normal human being' Genuine

Lelief in the inviolability of a minimum extent of individual liberty

."oifr some such absoiute stand. For it is clear that it has little to

f,"p. fo. from the rule of maiorities; democracy 1s.su5h is logically

,rnio--in.d to it, and historically has at times failed to protect it'

while remaining faithful to its own principles. Few governments, it

t ur U..n obseived, have found much difficulty in causing !b.:itsubjects to generate any wil l that- the. government wanted' ' l he

iri"mph of iespotism is to force the slaves to declare themselves

ii...-r ', -"y.,..d

no force; the slaves may proclaim their freedom

""* ,i".. l ly: but they aie none the less'slaves. Perhaps the chief

value for l ibeials of polit ical - 'positive'- rights, of participating.in

the government, is as a means for protecting what they hold to be

an uitimate value, namely individual - 'negative'- l iberty'

But if democracies ian, without ceasing to be democratic'

suppress freedom, at least as liberals have used the word, wh.at

*i"fa make a society truly free? For Constant, Mill, Tocqueville,

"nJ ,t. l iberal tradii ion to which they belong, no society is

-freeunless it is governed by at any rate two interrelated principles: frrst'

itr", "o

poi.., but oniy righis, can be regarded as absolute, so. that

;li;.t; whateuer power "gou.tnt

them, have an absolute- right to

r.ir:t. ,o behave inhumanly; and, second, that there are frontiers,

not artificially drawn, within which men should be inviolable, these

f.trrii.., being defined in terms of rules so long and widely accepted

that their observance has entered into the very conception of what

it is to be a normal human being, and, therefore, also of what it is to

act inhumanly or insanely; rules of which it would be absurd to

,"y, fot ."a-ple, that they could be abrogated by. some,formalp.L..dur. on ih. part of iome court or sovereign body' \f lhen I

ipeak of a man as-being normal, a part of what I mean is that he

ctuld not break these ri les easily, without a qualm of revulsion. it

is such rules as these that are broken when a man is declared gullty

.'iif,o"r trial, or punished under a retroactive law; when children